Pastor Steven, Elijah, Graham, and Abbey Furtick have a little jam session band they call the Pajama Bottom Band. This year for Easter they decided to make a video welcoming our first time guests. Enjoy!

Today is my husband’s 35 birthday! I thought the kids and I would share a few things about him…

My favorite thing about him…Elijah: He is so great at so many things and so humble about it.Graham: How he’s an awesome preacher.Abbey: I love how Daddy loves me.Me: I love how he is always growing. He has become a better man every single year that I have known him.

Something people may not know about him…Elijah: His first name is Larry.Graham: He’s not a body builder.Abbey: That he’s strong.Me: He’s a great songwriter.

Some of his favorite things to do are…Elijah: Play Mario with me.Graham: Take us out to lunch.Abbey: Play with me.Me: Take me on a date.

He is really good at…Elijah: PreachingGraham: FootballAbbey: Defeating the monstersMe: Writing music

Today is this guy’s birthday.
He is 34.
He is the best decision I ever made.
He is an amazing dad.
He is a humble warrior.
He is a brilliant leader.
He is a gift.
He is a world changer.
He is my teacher, pastor, lover, and friend.
He is more disciplined than anyone I know.
He loves God with all his heart.
He truly loves people.
He is the most generous man.
Happy Birthday Babe. I love you.

October is Pastor Appreciation month and I cannot miss the opportunity to publicly affirm my husband. He is truly an amazing man and I wish everyone could know him the way I do. So here is part 2 of 10 things I love about my pastor.

6. He is tenacious. I do not know anyone who refuses to give up more than he does. Whether he is having a difficult discussion or working on a sermon, he doesn’t stop until he figures out a solution. This past weekend for example, he told me he had been having a rough time bringing his sermon together. He had a plan and a good outline but he couldn’t figure out exactly how to express each point. He told me that he came up with the points (the meaning in the mud, the mercy in the mud and the miracle in the mud) at 4:25pm, just 35 minutes before our worship experience begins.

7. He is generous. I seriously do not know a person more generous. On small levels he loves to bless people, whether it is a staff member or a family member or a server at a restaurant. And on large levels, he has challenged me as we have given big and trusted God on more than one occasion in our marriage. And he has taught me by example that God cannot fill clenched fists. I hope our kids turn out to be just like him in this area.

8. He is not afraid to try something new. This past summer he started taking tennis lessons (a game he had never really played). This is not an easy thing to do as an adult. He is also always trying new routines, new ideas at church, new worship experience times, anything to make improvements. He has shown me by example that small changes often have the largest results.

9. He listens to me. What an amazing blessing it is to be married to a man who listens to me. If I share my heart with him, he may not agree right away but he always hears me and usually after a few days, I feel like he at least understands where I am coming from. When he is wrong, he admits it and apologizes. This is one of the things that makes our marriage so strong.

10. He is a brilliant leader. I have never seen someone so able to call out greatness in everyone around him. He challenges me on a daily basis, but I also see him challenge everyone around him and everyone under his teaching each week. People are better people because of him and that is not something we can all say for ourselves. He knows what to say, he knows what not to say and he leads by example. I have never heard him preach something he does not live out on a daily basis.

October is pastor appreciation month and I cannot let the month go by without appreciating mine here. I have said this before and will say it again. I wish everyone could know him the way I do. He is a great leader, a gifted preacher, and a godly man onstage and behind the scenes. Here are a few things I love about him.

1. He doesn’t do anything small. Everyone knows how much diet soda he drinks, but most people don’t know how much water he drinks too. This summer he started playing tennis. He went to Dick’s and came home with this water jug. I think it holds about 1/2 a gallon of water (Pictured next to his jug is my cup that I take when we play). The funny thing is he usually refills the jug when he plays. Whether he is consuming Guinness world record amounts of fluids or preaching 13 times back to back on a holiday weekend, he does it well and he does it big.

2. He is a great dad. This fall our boys have been playing baseball on a coach pitch team. My husband has only missed one game and one practice. He comes home from work just in time to take them to practice, and he leaves their Saturday games to get ready to preach but he doesn’t miss. Recently when Graham was having a hard time hitting the ball, another mom told him, “we’ve been out here every night that we don’t have practice, practicing on our own. My boys each do 100 pitches a night.” That weekend PF was back at Dick’s. This time with the boys. They bought a bucket of balls and hit the field. You better bet our boys were hitting better the next game. Yep.

3. He is the hardest working person I know. He understands the necessity of momentum and he knows how to use it. Whether it is in starting a new campus, working on his sermon, writing a new song or beginning his next book, he pushes through the resistance and gets down to business. He is the best at what he does because he works hard.

4. He still dates me. Rarely does a week go by that we do not go on a date. I know many times after traveling, the last thing he wants to do is eat more restaurant food. But he always takes me and he often leaves his phone in the car, now that’s a good man.

5. He is a through and through night owl and bless his heart, he tries not to be. Ever since I have known PF, he has loved staying up way past my ability to remain coherent. I have fallen asleep on him more times than I can count. If he went with his body’s natural inclination, he would stay up til 3 or 4 every night. But he knows he cannot be a grown up and do that so he doesn’t. He disciplines himself to go to bed at a decent enough time so that he can be around when we are getting ready for school in the mornings.

That’s all for now. I will finish my list for part 2. I know the suspense is killing you but you will have to wait.

Today is our 11th wedding anniversary. I have now been married to Steven Furtick for 1/3 of my life. I love him more now than I did the day we got married. I wish everyone could know him the way I do. I look forward to so many more years with this man.

We just got back from an amazing trip to London. Anytime my husband is going on a speaking trip to a cool city, I try to tag along. I love touring. I love audio guided tours and tourist gift shops and everything that goes along with it. My husband was a preaching machine, speaking 9 times in less than 4 days, and he still managed to see a few sights with me (Selfridges, Shakespeare’s globe there, and Windsor Castle). The whole trip culminated with him preaching at Royal Albert Hall. Probably the most beautiful venue he has ever spoken at.

Today is a special day in the Furtick household. It is Steven Furtick’s 33 birthday. These pictures were taken this past Sunday morning before he left for church. He knew the snow would be gone when we got home. I wish you could know him the way we do. You would love and respect him even more. He is an incredible husband, an amazing father, a brilliant leader and a man of God.